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Why I don’t believe in atheism

Nowhere does the Bible try to prove the existence of God. He is. Period.

Deal with it, earthlings.

Humanistic evangelists and atheistic peddlers are sure that we mindless theists have never considered the superior evidence for the positions they hold. Surely, if we did, they think, we would renounce the church and join them.

Once again, believers are lumped together by those who “just don’t get it” as the terminally naive, the hopelessly hopeful, the unthinking uneducated and the irrationally illiterate.

Most of the solid believers I know have considered atheism at one time or other. I did, while in college. This is not to say I joined the humanist society of Birmingham or majored in skepticism at Birmingham-Southern. But I read some of the stuff, talked to a few of the people, thought about the ramifications of it all, and made my choice to take my stand with believers.

I’ve never regretted it.

Here’s why.

1) As a rule, atheists tend to be a pretty miserable lot, while the best Christians I know are also the most put-together, positive, and effective people in the room.

I heard someone say once, “The devil has no godly old people.” Indeed. We could add that the Lord also seems to have all the best-mannered, generous-hearted, goal-oriented achievers. If you look at the product of atheism and Christianity, there is no contest.

2) Since faith is required for either position, choosing to believe this amazing universe came together by chance and will go out the same way requires far more faith than this Alabama farm boy can muster. As has been said in the book by this title, “I don’t have faith enough to be an atheist.”

3) While it’s true a large portion of Christians have probably not investigated various apologetic aspects–evidence for the resurrection, the historicity of Jesus, the integrity of Scriptures– a great many have. I sat in the room with Dr. Carl F. H. Henry in the summer of 1978 as he said to some of us, “Christianity is the only world religion that has come through the scientific revolution and emerged intact.” Some of the others are fighting tooth and claw to keep modern technology from taking a look at their authoritative writings.

4) I do like the old line of reasoning that goes: “If the atheist is true and after death, we all disappear into nothingness, then as a Christian I have lost nothing. But if Jesus Christ is true and after death life just begins to get interesting, then the atheist is in a lot of trouble.” What about that can they not see?

5) If we know people by their fruits, then philosophies should identify themselves the same way. So, does anyone know any charitable ministry ever started by the atheists? Show me one and I can show you a hundred hospitals and colleges, children’s homes and crisis centers begun by Christ-followers.

6) There are the miracles, such as the existence of Holy Scriptures (the uniformity of them, the prophecies, the clarity, and a thousand other aspects), the existence of the Man of Galilee (His birth, life, death, and resurrection; His teachings and promises, etc), the existence of the Church (so flawed, without its divine nature, surely it would have vanished long ago), and the existence of honest inquiry among believers (a sure sign, if you ask me, that God’s people are into Truth and nothing else).

7) My testimony–and yours–on the power of Jesus Christ who changed our lives. And, as C. S. Lewis pointed out, if a skeptic scoffs that my life is so far inferior to what a true Christian should look like, I do not argue with that, but reply that my life is still so far beyond what it would have been without Christ.

The fact is we need God.

We need Him for the simple reason that, as the prophet said, “it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.”

I need God to make me more than I would ever be otherwise. I need growth.

I need God to save me from my natural self-centeredness. I need love..

I need God to take care of friends and loved ones with real needs who are outside my ability to help. I need prayer.

I need God to guide me in decisions since I do not know what tomorrow holds and thus what to do with today’s opportunities. I need wisdom.

All by myself, I make a pretty small (and miserable) package.

Thank God, I am not alone here on this small planet. The living God has singled this one out and has dwelled among us and made it possible for us to live on a higher plane here and with HIm in Heaven forever.

I need God to get me to Heaven.

And because I need God, He sent Jesus.

I could not be an atheist on my worst day. God has done far too much for me to be so ungrateful.

Taking a trip to our beautiful gulf coast in the the U.S. this past weekend and other beautiful places in the U.S. and Carribean does it for me. One day maybe I will travel across the pond and see what God made over there. But, the magnificent beauty of our own country and the stars on a clear night scream for the existance of a Creator. True science, not the evolutionary biased science in the classroom, simply confirms we did not make this earth and it did not just happen from a Big Bang or a speck of something unknown. There is too much evidence to the contrary. It had to be created by an intelligent Designer, God-Elohim, plural with a singular verb, indicating monotheism, yet, God in three persons, the only One that can create something out of nothing. “Bara’ is the Hebrew word for it. Everything else has to come from something already made. And He did it simply by speaking the world and all of creation into existance. God makes things perfectly, we make things that are not perfect. When He said what He created was ‘good’, He was right. It was good. And His perfect plan to make things right again is perfect, too. If we hadn’t screwed it up, we’d still be living in paradise now. That is why He came back as a man-God Incarnate to live and experience all our pain and suffering and then live a perfect life that we can not and die an excruciating death so we can be right or ‘good’ (in good standing) again. He knew we would screw it up, just like Adam did, we inherited his sin nature. How else to expalin all this destruction going on in the world. He has all the answers. We do not. And to continue on a path bent on destruction the evolutionists or atheists believe is foolish beyond belief. In order to believe there is no God, you have to first believe that God does exist. Many say we created God in our own image. How foolish is that? If God were like me, I wouldn’t want to worship Him. I’d make a terrible God. The beauty of creation speaks about the Creator, but His Word does, too. And we have that and it’s many stories of His perfect love and perfect justice to set the record straight. As reliable as any manucript ever written. No other document has this amount of verifiable evidence to support it’s claims. Better get to reading it or you won’t know how it ends. And the end is closer now than it’s ever been. “Doesn’t matter if you are 10 or 70, you better make sure of your salvation”.

In order to have Romans remain Romans, and yet forsake their Jupiter, their Venus, etc., they had to give them something new; and as they could not convince the Roman that Jehovah was any greater, better, or wiser than Jupiter, they invented the “heaven and hell” business and preached it; and, of course, were not “expected” to prove their claim. Oh, it is an easy thing to deal in “futures.” A propos. If I were to believe in the Supernatural, I would say it is more natural to believe in a hundred gods who “rule the universe” than in one god. There is plenty work for them all.

They say that God is all-powerful; and yet Maimonides, that great Jewish philosopher, said that although God is attributed to be all-powerful, he CANNOT change the laws of nature. After all, we see that nature governs God as it does man. Both are creatures of circumstances. Man the worker, the thinker, the producer; God the imaginary phantom of a coerced, subdued, and frightened brain.

Science violates its own policies. Specifically two: It must have been observedand 2: it must be able to be repeated with the same results. #2 on your blog is accurate; atheism or evolution requires faith in man (science).

Science demonstrates, but leaves the mind free, while Christianity demands belief under penalty—eternal pain. The Bible is not a revelation but a complication. It is evidently the work of men and reflects no credit on its makers.

The Bible was certainly not dropped out of the sky fully written, true. “Holy men (and perhaps a woman or two or three) wrote it as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” It is a wonder of the ages. If you have not seen that, the loss is all yours, my friend. — Thanks for your note.

Try to explain to an atheist that humans cannot usher in the laboratory the Being infinitely superior than themselves and examine it. According to atheists, as long as you cannot detect and examine GOD, GOD does not exist. Their faith is about believing that human being is the superior being to everyone else. So, how the artificial organs, the artificial skin, the artificial lighting, the robots, the artificial teeth, and all other complex devices and systems that emulate ‘natural’ ones came about? Big-bang or creationism by an intelligent being? Get a clue, dear atheists.

How does a Royal Flush come about in poker? Does it just show up in your hand? Perhaps. It’s possible. But it would probably take a few draws from the shoe to get the cards you’re looking for. The cards you want are the useful mutations and the cards you get rid of are the useless mutations. Evolution does not discard, though, it just puts them aside (like male nipples, the appendix, etc.). It holds onto everything. Never know when something will come in handy.

You really should read the books your pastor doesn’t let you, Antonio. Just think how disappointed your God would be if you lived your whole life without seeing how the world really is.

The books your pastor doesn’t let you? Atheists come up with that statement from time to time. As though Christians are into mind control. Maybe Mormons and Jehovah’s (false) Witnesses are, but every Christian I know reads anything he chooses but knows how to recognize foolishness when he sees it. Medical schools do not have time enough to teach MDs all about all the quackeries around; it’s their job to teach the truth and trust the physicians to stay with that. Likewise, those of us who devote ourselves to knowing God’s Word. — Anyway, thanks for leaving your opinion.

This article is emblematic of the same type of arguments I used to make myself, so I feel compelled to respond.

1) No evidence was provided for this claim. However, even if sufficient evidence was provided, this would remain an argument from adverse consequences fallacy. “I will believe in X because not believing in X makes me sad” is a fallacious way to argue your position. (Case in point: Santa Claus.)

2) “It takes more faith to be an atheist” (sometimes phrased as “atheism is a religion”) is perhaps the single most common argument I hear in defense of theism, yet it is a terrible argument. How much faith does it take for you to disbelieve in Lord Vishnu? Zeus? The Flying Spaghetti Monster? Pikachu? It should become immediately clear that it does not take “faith” to discount claims that have absolutely no credible evidence to support them. I recommend Dr. Peter Boghossian’s lecture, “Faith: Pretending to know things you don’t know,” in which Dr. Boghossian examines this extremely common assertion.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp4WUFXvCFQ

3) There are over 1.6 billion Muslims and 1 billion Hindus in the world. Do you really want to argue that Christianity is the only religion that has survived the scientific revolution? Talk to any Muslim or Hindu, and they will speak with pride about how the adherents of their religions contributed to science throughout history.

4) This is Pascal’s wager, an argument that fails on every level imaginable. It ignores other religions, it ignores other heavens and hells, it assumes your god won’t be able to tell you are worshipping it for your own self interest, it assumes fear is a virtue, and it ignores the consequences of devoting your time and money to a false religion. Pascal’s wager is a terrible argument from beginning to end, which is why even Christian apologists like William Lane Craig will not use it in debate.

5) There are countless secular charities out there (one of my personal favorites is charity: water), but secular charities don’t advertise themselves as atheist charities. Bill Gates, an atheist, doesn’t claim to perform charity work in the name of atheism, nor should he. Secular charities manage to do good without proselytization. Here are some additional statistics and information to consider:http://yashwata.info/2011/11/06/misleading-questions/

6) Claims of miracles were ubiquitous in Jesus’ time; there is no contempoary evidence for the existence of Jesus (and, increasingly, scholars like Richard Carrier and Joe Atwill are specifically arguing against the existence of a historical Jesus); Muslim mosques, Jewish synagogues, and Hindu temples still exist; and there is honest inquiry among the adherents of all other religions as well. That is not proof of Allah, Yahweh, or Vishnu.

7) Testimony? I’ll tell you mine. Through my attempts at evangelizing, I came face to face with skeptics who posed me with questions I could not answer. This forced me to study more and seek out the best possible arguments for the existence of God so that I would be better prepared to present my case, but the direct result of those efforts was a realization there is in fact no good reason to believe that the Christian god or any other god exists, nor is there any credible evidence for any such god. At this point, I cannot forget the things I’ve learned—at least not without a serious concussion or a labotomy. Following your god’s commandment to evangelize is precisely what made me an atheist. How can you make sense of this?

Does knowing that Such-and-such a person is now seriously questioning the historicity of Jesus make it such? They’ve done that from the beginning. Not one thing you said is new, not one thing is something many of us have not wrestled with ourselves. But you have been caught in the quicksand, my friend, and the undertow is strong. One fellow sent me a long list of atheistic books which I need to be reading, he said. As though anything they say is new. People have been scoffing and turning out these books from the beginning. — Does the existence of pagan temples prove Christ was wrong and his revelation worthless? That seems to be your point. Yet it ignores Jesus’ statement that “few there be who find it” (referring to His way). — We didn’t say there were no atheists doing good, only that they are few and far between, compared to the number of believers who devote themselves to uplifting their neighbors’ existence. — I suggest you lay aside the atheistic literature and give Jesus Christ the opportunity to get through to you. Quieten your heart, and read large portions of His words (i.e., the Gospels especially). Meditate upon them. Do not argue one way or the other, but just reflect on what He said. “Faith comes by…the word of God,” Paul said.